1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to an objective technique for evaluating short films particularly television advertisements and, more particularly, to a computerized technique for recording and analyzing the electrical activity of a subject's brain during the advertisement to determine attention to and cognition of the advertisement and event related potential recording during test sessions subsequent to the advertisement to determine the subjects understanding of the advertisement, memory of the advertisement product, perceived value of the product and intent to buy the product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Previous methods of evaluating the effects of television advertisements have involved either paper and pencil behavioral methods or physiological methods. Subjective interviews, paper and pencil surveys and day after recall have not proven to be reliable or valid methods of measuring and predicting the effect of an advertisement on current and future consumer attitudes and behavior. These methods of measuring the impact of an advertisement have not been as successful as desired because consumers become confused by requests to self-report their feelings and thoughts and often respond by giving answers they feel are socially correct or expected. Secondly, the self-reporting always lacks "objectivity". Objective physiological measures, galvanic, skin response, heart rate, pupil dilation, and the electroencephalogram (EEG) have been used to evaluate the effect of an advertisement as described in Appel et al., "Brain Activity and Recall of TV Advertising", Journal of Advertising Research; 19(4), 1979. These efforts have been criticized on the basis that they tend to measure general arousal and that the responses toward the commercial could not be verified as the subject's reaction to the commercial or some other external stimuli. In addition, these physiological measures lacked an affective direction, that is, the methods do not indicate whether a positive or negative reaction to the commercial is being exhibited.